


Need Someone (To Numb The Pain)

by breaking_points



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Sex, Other, Spiralling, Suicide Attempt, and a lot of it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-05-26 00:41:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14989010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breaking_points/pseuds/breaking_points
Summary: “Spend my days locked in a haze,Tryna forget you babe,I fall back down.”-Tove Lo, Habits (Stay High)Aka what happens to Betty if Jughead did die in 2x21





	Need Someone (To Numb The Pain)

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys!  
> So yeah, I stopped writing, I know.  
> But I was listening to Tove Lo’s Habits (Stay High) and was immediately inspired.  
> It’s a rambling fic, my usual kind, but please tell me if you like it!  
> Enjoy!
> 
> TW: suicide attempt, mentioned alcohol abuse
> 
> I'm sorry if the part with the suicide attempt bothers you, or if it doesn't feel like it's written correctly.

It isn’t like that usual kind of heartbreak that you feel, the kind where it doesn’t hit you at first.

She remembers the ride home (she can’t remember who it was that drove her, trauma is messed up like that), her mind on a loop of “ _he’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead_.”

When she finally reaches her house, she throws off her coat, not even aiming for the hanger that is the staple of the Cooper family home. The long pea coat hits an armchair that was her father’s favorite, and maybe if the situation was a little different, she would’ve stopped to cry over losing her beloved father to his insanity, but enough is enough. Betty Cooper is done being emotional.

She heads to the kitchen, pulls out a bottle of vodka from her mom’s secret stash of alcohol, and begins to drink.

Her throat burns, but it’s a dull pain that she’ll take over the harsh memory of his broken body and bleeding face.

\--

She’s in Trev’s bedroom, his hands pulling her shirt up, and she knows that this is so wrong – it’ll taint her memories of sex, because it’s not Jughead with her. It’s a replacement.

She doesn’t even come when he’s finished; she just lays there as he gets up, presumably to clean himself up.

This is the third time that it’s happened – with Trev alone. She’s been in this situation though, with numerous other men. When they groan above her as they reach their highs, she pictures Jughead’s blissed-out face as he whispers, “Come with me, please, baby,” and every time she sees his face, it takes every ounce of willpower that she has to not cry out his name.

But she can’t help it, she muses, if all of her existence after his death is just a cry for Jughead to come back.

\--

She wakes up in Veronica’s bed for the fourth time this week, her head throbbing in her ears. She takes the aspirin and downs the water.

When she walks down the hallway to the door, still in her pajamas, Veronica intercepts her.

“Betty-“

“I’m good, V. I’m gonna get going,” she states, her words slurring together as they usually do the morning after another wild night at the Whyte Wyrm.

“No, no, no!” Veronica protests, pulling on her best friend’s arm. It’s as if she’s willing the old Betty (the one with a tight ponytail and enough pep to compensate for Riverdale if there ever was a shortage of it) to come back, but Betty just shakes out of her friend’s grip and leaves.

\--

The hoarse and lewd yells of joy from the lecherous older male Serpents echo around the tiny bar as Betty sheds her corset and dances on a table.

She makes a pouty face, stumbling off as Sweet Pea and Toni yell at her to get down from there.

They both manage to carry her to the Jones trailer, and lay her in Jughead’s bed – they have an agreement with FP to keep her at his trailer for safety, if she was ever on the Southside. When it comes to the love of his late son’s life, the older Jones man will agree to anything, if it means keeping her safe.

He sees her as a daughter, he really does. Everytime Jughead brought up her name, whether he was six or sixteen, his face would light up.

And the last time Jughead brought up her name, it ended with him in a grave.

\--

It’s getting worse and worse. Every single dream that she has features him. It varies from the first day that they saw each other, when they were four years old standing in Archie’s backyard, to the shy hopefulness in his eyes as he leans in to kiss her for the first time, to the look in his eyes as he begged her to stay – it’s all too much, so she spends her waking hours wrecking her liver or entertaining a one night stand. She wants to forget. It’s easier than living with the memory of him.

She stumbles over to the bathroom sink (this appears to be Toni’s trailer, judging by the crumbling pastel wallpaper) and pukes her guts out. She rinses the sink, pops some more aspirin that seems to be kept especially for her, and leaves.

She wonders if the place that she’s just left is the same place where Jughead kissed Toni after Archie came with his fateful message. She remembers the tears on her face as she heard her father’s voice, sounding so metallic and evil, saying _“He’s not worthy of your love_ ,” and her later thinking, “ _No, I’m not worthy of his love, I was so weak_ ,” and still thinking that until she saw his eyes again, when he scoffed, _“You’re an enigma, Cooper”_ – the look of wonder then still makes her heart ache a little.

She misses his eyes, the way they’d twinkle when he teased her, the way they turned bluer when he was being vulnerable with her, and the way they’d darken as he moved inside her. She doesn’t see kind eyes like his anymore. All she sees in everybody else’s eyes is disgust, pity, or both.

\--

“Alice?” Sheriff Keller picks up his phone on the first ring.

“T-Tom,” Alice answers in a shaky voice. Something is immediately off. She hasn’t called him anything other than Sheriff Incompetent since they were twenty, and it’s a running joke that rattle snakes shake in their boots when they see Alice.

“What’s wrong?” He’s surprised that he doesn’t immediately collapse when she responds.

“It’s Betty.”

\--

Her blonde hair is fanned out on the pillow, and blood is dripping everywhere. They can’t tell where it’s coming from yet, but Archie thinks he already knows.

Since they all saw Jughead being carried by his father, none of them were the same. But Betty, of course, took it the hardest. She started drinking, started partying, and had a reputation of being _easy_ (though Archie knocked the lights out of any male who dared to say that). And now, it all might end, with a slash of a razor to delicate wrists.

The paramedics are rushing her to the small emergency room, and Archie wonders if she’ll be in the same room that Jughead had - and if she'll have the same fate as that former occupant.

\--

Betty sees blood pouring uncontrollably from her wrists, then black, then – light.

The light shifts into a field of sunflowers, and she sees a tall boy dressed in all black, with an oddly-shaped grey beanie on top of his head.

“Juggie!” she screams as she runs to him.

The figure turns around, its face breaking into a wide grin. “Betts!” he welcomes as he opens his arms and lets her fall into them.

After a few seconds, when she pulls away, joy still in her heart, Jughead’s face morphs into one of seriousness. “Hey, Betty. It’s not your turn to be here yet. Don’t-“ and it sounds like he’s trying to hold back tears.

“Juggie, I won’t, I won’t,” she promises, and lays her hand over his heart. It’s impossible not to promise such a thing when she sees the heartbreak all over his face.

She wants to stay with him in that pretty field of light forever, but she already sees it ebbing away, the yellow changing into white as she wakes up.

\--

It’s quite some time later that Betty is back in that hospital, this time with grayer hair and fewer people at her side. She is soon welcomed back into that field, but this time, she’s there to stay. She and Jughead join hands, smile at each other like they used to every day, and walk off into the distance.

Together, the way it was meant to be.

\--

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment if you liked it!
> 
> Follow me on Tumblr @breaking-points and @bugheading


End file.
